The present invention relates to a process, system, and/or a structure adapted to produce or have adhesion improvement(s) associated with surface nano-structuring. An exemplary embodiment of the invention can improve various attributes of a material so treated to include improved adhesion as well as shear strength.
Surface adhesion functionality can be enhanced via mechanical abrasion, acid etching, plasma etching, or chemical bonding agents. Such approaches or methods associated with mechanical abrasion, acid etching, plasma etching, or chemical bonding agents serve to either increase surface area and mechanical engagement capacity (collectively, surface roughness) or increase the surface's ability to chemically bind with a given adhesive. Some deficiencies of these methods are listed as follows: difficult to control; damages the treated surface; removes desirable material from a surface; time/labor intensive; and require costly and hazardous chemicals. Such adhesion improvement methods associated with mechanical abrasion, acid etching, plasma etching, or chemical bonding agents are inherently limited in the minimum precision, scale, and accuracy of functional improvements they facilitate.
Adhesion advancements can be based on an application of lasers to ablate material from a surface in order to create a desired surface morphology. While this ablative approach facilitates generation of adhesion-enhancing surface features, which are smaller and more controllable versus alternative surface enhancement techniques, ablation methods remove material, are limited in the minimum scale of the morphologies they can generate, and can inflict thermal damage to a target surface.
According to an illustrative embodiment of the present disclosure, exemplary methods and structures are provided with desirable attributes such as adhesion improvement associated with surface nano-structuring. Additional features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of the illustrative embodiment exemplifying the best mode of carrying out the invention as presently perceived.